When anti-racist activists stole a Confederate monument from Old Live Oak Cemetery in Selma, Alabama last month, they pledged to transform it “into a toilet” if its owners, the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), did not meet one demand: flying a banner with a quote by civil rights activist Assata Shakur outside their headquarters on April 9, the anniversary of the end of the Civil War.
Unsurprisingly, the UDC did not jump at the opportunity. The activist group, known as White Lies Matter (WLM), now says it has fulfilled its promise of drilling a hole into the Jefferson Davis Memorial Chair — and shared photos of the, uh, dethronement.
“As the UDC has given us every indication that they had no intention of hanging the banner, even going as far as declaring our demands ‘fake news’, White Lies Matter has decided to move forward prematurely with the alteration of the chair,” the group said in an email. “It will be returned to the UDC immediately.”
Images shared with Hyperallergic depict one of WLM’s members decked out in the navy blue uniform commonly worn by Union soldiers, sitting triumphantly on the ornate chair and presumably using a flag of the Confederacy as toilet paper.
“Everything about the South is painfully polite, even the racism, that is, until it’s not. We don’t have the luxury of being polite,” the activists said in a statement. “We aren’t doing this for parades, to dress up and relive the glory days.”
“Four hundred years ago, the first slave arrived on American soil. A hundred and fifty years ago, we fought a senseless war to double down on that original sin. And now we all have to deal with the consequences,” the activists said in a statement. “At least now their stupid chair is useful.”
What can we say? White supremacy is shitty.
